Bobcats lose another home game as they prepare for road trip

By Richard Walker

Published: Saturday, February 23, 2013 at 09:54 PM.

Dunlap certainly wasn’t pleased with the Bobcats’ effort in Friday’s 30-point home loss to Chicago, which marked Charlotte’s 10th loss by 20 or more points this season. But Dunlap said the team’s 19 losses by 10 points or less bother him more. “I find that the games that are harder to lose are the close ones. Those are the ones that stick in your craw.”…

Denver became the eighth team to sweep the Bobcats this season, including the seventh from the Western Conference. Atlanta is the Eastern Conference team as the Southeast Division rival went 4-0 against the Bobcats. The Western Conference teams to sweep Charlotte are Denver, Golden State, Houston, the Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans, Phoenix and San Antonio.

CHARLOTTE – After beating Orlando in their first game after the All-Star break last Tuesday, the Charlotte Bobcats had good reason to look forward to a stretch of three games in four days.

Instead, Detroit, Chicago and Denver made that home stand a winless nightmare for the Bobcats, capped by Denver’s 113-99 win in front of 18,481 at Time Warner Cable Arena.

“We have to take a bit more pride in holding down the home court,” said first-year coach Mike Dunlap, whose 13-43 team is now 7-22 at home and 6-21 on the road this season.

Charlotte now heads out for its second and final West Coast road trip. The Bobcats’ four-game, seven-day road trip begins with a game at the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday, followed by games at Utah (next Friday), Sacramento (next Sunday) and Portland (March 4) before returning home to play Brooklyn on March 6.

“What disturbs me is there’s a lack of consistency at times at home,” Dunlap said. “We obviously want to win on the road because of what it says about us. But to build the kind of culture we want, we have to win at home.”

To Dunlap’s point, the Bobcats have now drawn 14 crowds of 16,000 or more fans in their 29 home dates at Time Warner Cable Arena this season. Only once in those games has Charlotte gotten a victory – the 90-89 win over Indiana on opening night that snapped the team’s 23-game losing streak.

“The Charlotte fan is a great fan,” Dunlap said. “And I don’t blame them when they don’t like when we don’t play well at home.”

On Saturday, the effort was certainly better than it was in Friday’s 105-75 loss to Chicago.

In fact, the Bobcats even led by five points in the opening quarter.

But Denver’s fast-paced, high-flying offense was simply too much for Charlotte after the Bobcats took their final lead at 46-44 with 5:33 left in the opening half.

University of North Carolina 2009 NCAA championship point guard Ty Lawson led the way with 20 points, five rebounds and five assists, but most fans will remember the Nuggets’ 14 dunks. Seven-footer JaVale McGee had seven of them on a 17-point night. Kenneth Faried, Andre Iguodala and Wilson Chandler also got in on the dunkfest.

For Charlotte, Kemba Walker had 24 points and five assists, Gerald Henderson had 19 points and rookie Jeffery Taylor had a career-high 18 points.

Notes: Many NBA insiders think George Karl’s glowing recommendation of Dunlap was one of the big reasons Dunlap got the Bobcats’ head coaching job last June. And Karl, who had Dunlap on his staff for two years from 2006-08, said he got to spend some time with his former assistant on Saturday. “He’s going through the hell of losing,” Karl said. “But he knew the challenge when he took it.”…

Dunlap certainly wasn’t pleased with the Bobcats’ effort in Friday’s 30-point home loss to Chicago, which marked Charlotte’s 10th loss by 20 or more points this season. But Dunlap said the team’s 19 losses by 10 points or less bother him more. “I find that the games that are harder to lose are the close ones. Those are the ones that stick in your craw.”…

Denver became the eighth team to sweep the Bobcats this season, including the seventh from the Western Conference. Atlanta is the Eastern Conference team as the Southeast Division rival went 4-0 against the Bobcats. The Western Conference teams to sweep Charlotte are Denver, Golden State, Houston, the Los Angeles Lakers, New Orleans, Phoenix and San Antonio.